Harris Power Earns Jefferson Lab's Top Small Business Award for 2010

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. - Harris Power & Equipment, based in Yorktown, has been recognized as Jefferson Lab's Outstanding Small Business Subcontractor of the Year for 2010.

R. Dudley Harris, company president, and several Harris employees who regularly carry out contract work at Jefferson Lab, attended an awards ceremony at the laboratory on April 21. He accepted the award, saying, "Being chosen to receive this award means a lot to us. We appreciate this recognition and your business. Our workers earned this and they are very deserving of this recognition."

When presenting the award, Mike Dallas, Jefferson Lab's chief operating officer, said, "Small businesses are very important to the nation and to Jefferson Lab. Harris Power makes a significant contribution to the laboratory on a daily basis."

Harris Power & Equipment, in business since 1972, primarily handles generator installations and all types of electrical installations, systems maintenance and repairs and various types of construction projects. It is licensed as a "Class A" electrical, general, plumbing and gas pipe fitting contractor in Virginia.

With a workforce averaging 30 people, the company was awarded its first Jefferson Lab contract in December 2002. Its total contract awards from the lab since then exceeds $4.7 million. Last year the company completed 648 work orders, inspected more than 400 electrical panels and performed preventative maintenance on all of the laboratory's generators.

In the past year, the company also has completed a number of very important projects for the lab, according to Paul Powers, Jefferson Lab electrical systems and energy manager. "The company has taken on tasks that have been a tremendous benefit to the lab. Its workers have devised procedures to safely and efficiently carry out maintenance, repair and change-out work on a variety of electrical systems at the lab. Their efforts have made our facilities and systems run more efficiently and dependably," Powers said.

"From a quality standpoint, their work is top level. They don't take shortcuts. They come in early and stay late to support our normal work schedules so that their impact to our operations is invisible," Powers added. "But while their work may be invisible to many, it is very much appreciated by those of us who know what they're doing."

Jefferson Lab subcontracts a broad range of services and Harris Power is one of several hundred small businesses that work with the laboratory. Using the lab's established criteria for this award, the award committee reviewed the nominations and made the winning selection.

###

Jefferson Science Associates, LLC, a joint venture of the Southeastern Universities Research Association, Inc. and PAE, manages and operates the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, or Jefferson Lab, for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science.

DOE’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit https://energy.gov/science.